1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an electric circuit board tester.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Electric circuit board testers are known for example from U.S. Pat. No. 3,564,408 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,417,204. These testers comprise a contact or test board on which test pins are arranged in a basic center-spacing. The test pins are connected via long leads to a test circuit. The circuit boards to be tested are placed on the contact board, whereby an adapter may be interposed between the circuit board and the test board so that an electrical contact is produced between each test point of the circuit board to be tested and a test pin.
It is against the background of such testers that modularly configured testers have been developed as are described in German Pat. Nos. 32 40 916 C2 and 33 40 180 C1. These testers comprise a mother-board locating a vertical arrangement of modules. Each of the modules covers part of the electronic test circuit and comprises test pins oriented vertically on its upper end. Several such modules are arranged juxtaposed in such a tester, the arrangement of the test pins forming a contact field replacing the contact board. So that the modules are securely held together, a perforated board may be located on the test pins so that each test pin passes through a hole in the perforated board, it thereby being positionally located.
This modular configuration of the contact field has a proven record of success and is popular in actual practice. One salient advantage of this modular configuration is that the contact pressure applied when testing a circuit board is passed on via the modules to the mother-board. The drawback is, however, that when a change is made to the center-spacing of the contact field all of the modules need to be replaced as a whole. This is why for cost reasons basic center-spacing is defined, which can only be changed at considerable financial expense.